


30 Day Fanfic Challenge

by TheThirdTemptationOfParis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, M/M, Tags may be added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-05 16:39:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15867567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheThirdTemptationOfParis/pseuds/TheThirdTemptationOfParis
Summary: Me, a dumb college student, trying to write 30 days worth of fanfic. Yeah this probably won't work.





	1. Dream

It happened often for the two of them. When someone goes through that much trama, together and apart, nightmares were bound to happen. For John, in the beginning, it was Afghanistan, gunfire and dust and wind storms. Adam and Michael and… James. When it was just him, waking up alone, constantly shaking hand finally still, he knew what was wrong with his mind. He missed the war, but he hated what it made him into. When he woke up next to Sherlock, though, it made everything a little better, the pain a little more bearable, but John was always shaken.

After the Fall, however, that’s all he ever saw in his nightmares. Sherlock, falling from the roof of St. Bart’s, hitting the ground, the blood on his face. When he woke up alone then, screaming Sherlock’s name into a dark, unfamiliar room in his new apartment, disoriented and heartbroken, all he wanted to know was where he went wrong that day.

When Sherlock returned, when he was with _her_ , all he dreamt about was when he was going to be able to get back to him. Even when he was still absurdly angry with him, he just dreamt about what it would be like to hold Sherlock in his arms again. He left Mary, nursed Sherlock’s wounds and the dreams stopped for a while. Besides, he had bigger things to worry about. Like Sherlock’s dreams and the secrets that hid behind them.

Sherlock never dreamt much as a child, and when he did he never remembered it. It was always some inconsequential fear or wish he had, something that he knew would never come true. Even as he grew older, discovered who he was, he always kept this stance. He always tried to forget the dreams about the faceless man that would tell him he loved him. 

After he met John those dreams became more frequent. Those, and the nightmares he started having after the Pool. The ones where it didn’t end the same way, and the ones where Moriarty succeeded in burning his heart by taking John. He never told John about those, not until years later.

During his two years away, that was all he dreamt about, whenever he was able to get sleep. John back home in London, unaware of what Sherlock was doing, befriending one of Moriarty’s men, only to get himself killed. He knew, logically, that John would never be that careless, but he always still had his fears.

The first night he was back in London, he didn’t sleep. He couldn’t. He knew what he would see when he closed his eyes. When he finally got John back, however, and John saw the state in was in, he gave in to his body’s needs and slept. He woke up, shaking and sweating, screaming in Serbian. John was by his side, a soothing hand on his arm, and Sherlock fought his innate instinct to flinch. John was there, and everything was fine.

As the years wore on, the nightmares waned, the night turning into dreams of the future, and sometimes no dreams at all. And on the off occasion that there was a nightmare, they both knew that the other would be there to soothe their fears and hold the other long into the night.


	2. Lock

“Sherlock, what’s in this locked box on top of the dresser?”

“Um, it’s nothing. Not important.”

“Not important? It’s a locked box. You’re bound to be keeping something in there.”

“What if I told you it was a secret? Then would you leave it be?”

“Probably not.”

“For God’s sake John, this really isn’t how I wanted it to turn out.”

“Sherlock, you’re scaring me…”

“You’ve left me no choice, I suppose.”

“Sherlock?”

“...”

“Oh my God…”

“John Hamish Watson, will you do me the absolute honor of being my husband?”

“Yes. One thousand times yes!”


	3. Bitterness

It happens less often than it used to. John wouldn’t say he’s still angry, at least not as much as that first year Sherlock was back. Between being ecstatic that he was and worrying about his wellbeing, John found time for the bitterness he had been harboring in his heart for two years. He tried his best to do it while Sherlock was out of the house or primarily occupied. Those days, the flat was very quiet, and John thought he hid it well until one particular morning.

He’d just walked out of the bedroom, intent on making his morning tea, when the sound of Sherlock’s voice stopped him, “You’re angry.”

John’s shoulders tensed, “No. Why would you think that?”

“You sat up, fully awake, at approximately half four this morning. When I woke up fully an hour later, your breathing wasn’t regular like it normally is when you’re in REM sleep. Something woke you up and made you too upset to fall back asleep. So what is it?”

“Sherlock—”

“That’s your lying voice. I know it by now. If something is bothering you, you have to tell me so I know what to do to fix it.”

John sighed, “You can’t fix this, Sherlock. It’s already been done.”

He felt Sherlock’s searching his back, “Are you… are you leaving me?”

John finally turned around, “What? No. Sherlock, no, I would never do that. It’s just that sometimes it’s hard for me. I go back to a dark place every once in a while and I don’t want to worry you.”

“You go back to when I was away, don’t you?” John nodded. Sherlock stood and stopped right in front him, “You could have just told me.” He placed a hand on John’s hip and the other on John’s cheek.

John leaned into it, “I know. It’s just… it was a dark time for me. And sometimes it’s just there in the back of my mind and it consumes me. I feel like I’ll wake up one day and you’ll just be gone. That the gravestone with your name on it actually has you under it. And it just still makes me mad that you didn’t tell me what you were doing.”

“Oh, darling,” Sherlock whispered, pulling John to him, “I swear to you, that will never happen again. And you have to tell when you feel like this. Just don’t fight it on your own.”

John nodded, placing his ear to Sherlock’s heart, letting everything drain out of him, trying his best to believe the man in front of him.


	4. Photograph

They each had one. It was from their first Christmas together together. I had taken years for them to get there, and they never missed a chance to show it off. Sherlock did so most often. Whenever someone saw his wedding band and assumed he must have a gorgeous wife at home, he couldn’t resist proving them wrong. “Oh yes, she’s the most beautiful thing. I have a picture of her, actually.” The look on their face when they see him and John is normally either deep confusion or anger. It never failed to make Sherlock smile.

John, however, normally took the picture out when he was alone, gazing at the man he loved more than anything in the universe. It was a secret moment, really. He always just missed him when he was out of the house. 

And sometimes they looked at their pictures together, pointing out differences between them then and them now. The photographs are just prove that they made it to where they wanted to be.


	5. Forgiveness

It was a long eight months. So much radio silence from John, and it drove Sherlock insane. All he wanted to do was take it back, let that bullet hit him instead of Mary, possibly keep the two of them out of it all together. Anything to give his best friend his wife and mother of his child back. But he knew that was impossible, so he stewed in the radio silence, even created some numbing silence of his own.

So when there was a knock on the door to the flat after a particularly potent hit, Sherlock was too disoriented to comprehend anything that happened. He remembered John letting himself in, taking in the state of the flat and Sherlock himself, immediately falling into disappointment, then rage.

“Hello, John,” Sherlock said, not turning to look at him. 

“Are you serious right now, Sherlock?”

“Why don’t you ask the various needles around the flat?”

John slammed the door, “Tell me where every ounce of this shit is in the flat. Now.”

“Why should I?” Sherlock shot back, rolling his eyes.

“So I can pour it all out the window and make sure none of it enters your veins again.”

“Kitchen.”

John pulled back the kitchen door, finding Sherlock’s in home lab. Sherlock felt the anger radiating off of John. There was a growl of anger, then a crashing of glass all over the kitchen floor, “Tell me why you thought this was a good idea?”

“Because you were gone and I didn’t know what to do.”

The anger seeped from the room as John sighed, “Christ, Sherlock.” 

That’s the last thing he remembered until the next morning where he woke up with a glass of water and paracetamol on the bedside table and a note from John.

 _I cleaned the kitchen. Meet me in the living room when you’re ready to talk._

It was a few hours until Sherlock was ready to leave the room, only to find John sitting in his old chair, arms crossed, staring straight ahead, blankly, “Good morning. Feeling better?”

Sherlock sat down, sighing, “You know the answer to that.”

“What you said last night, did you mean it?”

“Which part?”

“The part where you said you did this because I was gone.”

Sherlock let his head fall against the back of his chair, “What would you do if I said yes?”

“Apologize. And forgive you. Because I know what happened wasn’t your fault.”

Sherlock looked up, slightly dizzy from the quick movement, “You mean that?”

John huffed out a laugh, “Of course I do. Now for the love of God, don’t ever do this again. If I lost you…” John cleared his throat, “If I lost you I don’t know what I would do. So please, for me, stay clean.”

Sherlock nodded, “Of course, John.”


End file.
